


Beneath The Skin

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-10
Updated: 2009-12-10
Packaged: 2017-10-06 23:35:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"They only see the weapon, but there is so much more beneath the skin. There is more to us than what they can use."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beneath The Skin

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the LJ community "rayne_shippers"'s [ Fall Challenge.](http://community.livejournal.com/rayne_shippers/1252100.html) I took prompt #42 – Frost.

They landed on Persephone at the cusp of winter, a chill in the air and the grass crisping with a thin sheen of ice. River had settled just outside of town so that Mal, Zoe and Jayne could do the run without attracting too much notice. While she was their Reader, she was also their pilot until they could afford to hire on another. It made Simon feel safer to know she was aboard the ship, but River had always felt that her place was out in the open.

The ship was merely a bigger box to be stored in, but Simon could never understand that. He liked boxes. He thought they were safe.

River left him and Kaylee in the mess and went down to the cargo bay. The bay doors were open, waiting for the arrival of the rest of the crew. She hadn't dressed for the coming winter, hadn't dressed even for fall. The dress was thin and layered, like burgundy scarves around her body. It had been left behind in Inara's shuttle when she left for the second time, the gift she hadn't gotten around to giving River for her birthday. River hadn't thought Inara would mind if she took it out of its hiding place, as it was meant for her anyway. It wasn't a practical dress, but it was pretty and it talked about life and the mysteries therein.

"We're coming back!" Mal shouted over the comm. "Get them engines fired up and ready to hoof it out of here! We got company!"

River's bare feet flew to the pilot's chair, and she sank down into its ghosts. The engine turned over, hot and ready to fly through the air. She could feel the others return, could feel the presence of those in pursuit. _I'm not willing to die for this,_ she thought at the leader of the pack, sliding the thought amongst his own ambivalent ones.

"They're fallin' back," Jayne said in amazement, watching from the port as they pulled up into the air and got ready to break atmo. "They let us go."

"Somehow I think we got our witch to thank for that one," Mal said, looking over the cargo on the sled. "At least we got paid for this one."

Jayne frowned, not ready to give this up just yet. River was a scary, _feng le_ witchy girl with big eyes and a surprising punch. This was a new piece of strange to know about, that their witchy girl could simply _make_ someone do something they didn't want to do. Mal and Zoe could count their lucky stars for their jobs, but Jayne found it somewhat creepifying. What if he didn't think his own thoughts or do his own deeds anymore? Where did that leave him but acting like someone else's puppet? Things were uncertain enough out in the black without the Alliance teetering toward another civil war, and this was just another piece of uncertainty he didn't want to deal with.

"You do anything to those men?" he asked gruffly, coming into the front of the ship.

River turned around after laying in a course he couldn't recognize. "It was an acceptable risk."

"You do something fiddly with their brains or what?"

"I strengthened an idea the leader was contemplating," River replied, looking at him curiously. "Why is it important to you? You returned safely and without need to be mended."

Jayne took in the thin dress that she was wearing. It hid nothing and showed the gooseflesh on her pale arms. "You go wear something that covers ya up," he said abruptly. There was no call to be looking at the girl as anything other than Reader and pilot. He didn't need to see that she wasn't a little girl and had filled out nicely.

River stood in front of him, head tilted to the side. "I am decently attired. Every private area is covered appropriately."

That wasn't the problem. It was the suggestion behind the filmy folds of fabric, the way it clung to her lithe curves and reminded him how long it had been since he'd been with a woman.

He eyed her coldly, trying to push the thoughts into a corner of his mind. Cold showers, the airlock, the black, the stares he'd get from Mal or Simon... Anything to cover them up, to keep them buried where they belonged. He had no call to think on her as anything but Reader and pilot and Simon's _mei mei._

Her hands were cold where they touched his face hesitantly, and she shivered at the contact. He raised his hands to push her away, back toward the console. "I don't mind the thoughts," she whispered intently. "I like them."

"You shouldn't be readin' my mind," Jayne growled.

"I don't. Not the way you imply. Flashes, images, feelings... You're loud, everything clear in mind as if spoken. The others are foggy, difficult to discern. It's different with you. I can hear you wherever you are, whenever you think at me. I can't block you out."

"Why's that?" he asked, pulling her hands down from his face. They were small, lethal things, disappearing into his only too easily. He had lewd dreams about those hands, the things they could do to him if they were so inclined. Oh yes, it had been much too long since he'd been with a woman, since he had forgotten himself as anything more than merc and weapon.

"We're the same, you and I," River whispered, stepping closer. She was warm, too warm, like a fire against his chilled skin. "They only see the weapon, but there is so much more beneath the skin. There is more to us than what they can use."

"I ain't nobody's tool."

River smiled at his automatic protest. "You serve a function, as do I. Don't you want to move beyond the function? Don't you want to live?"

"I live just fine, thanks," Jayne returned, his voice gruff and frosted with distrust.

River pulled one of her hands out of his grasp and moved to cup his face, to cradle him gently. "It can be better, couldn't it? Joined to another? Belonging somewhere?"

Jayne supposed he should have pulled back, should have called her a crazy moonbrain, stopped that star struck look in her eyes. Only...

Only no one had looked at him in quite that way since he was fifteen years old and struggling in school. No one had seen him as someone special, their one and only, their reason for being more than a cog in a machine. No one had seen _him,_ the pieces that lay beneath the skin of his appearance, the parts that needed to belong somewhere.

River stood on her tip toes and brushed a gentle kiss across his lips. "Would I be remiss in telling you that you are my home? That you keep things grounded when I spin out of control?"

"Don't you got your brother for that?" he asked, voice suddenly hoarse.

"He has another. He's building a home and family that only includes me tangentially. It's as it should be. He should move on, he should live for himself and not for me." River brushed another featherlight kiss across his lips. "I wish for that. To create something real and mine and lasting, something to make me whole and not pieces of things."

"You think it's _me?"_ Jayne asked, incredulous.

"I know it is," River said simply, her gaze clear and direct. "You are the one for me."

It was enough to break open the hold he'd kept on his roving urges, like a river raging in spring when the ice breaks. He kissed her, fierce and greedy and needy, all the things he could never let himself be. One hand wound through her hair, the other pulled her close. He needed to feel her against him, needed to feel her thaw out the frozen hopes he'd buried inside when he had left his home world for the black. River was holding him close, mouth open beneath his, just as needy and passionate as he was.

He could worry about everyone else later. For now, he had this.

***


End file.
